Method and apparatus for interfacing a customer with a call center

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for interfacing a customer with a call center allows information obtained from a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag to be transmitted to the call center to provide additional information about the customer and allow the session to be routed within the call center. The call center may be accessed by telephone, computer, or via another type of customer premises equipment over a voice or data network. The RFID tag may be an identification tag provided to the customer for access to the call center or may be a tag associated with the customer and not specific to the call center. The call center may route calls based on routing information contained in the RFID tag information, customer identity and previous sessions with that customer, personal and demographic information and statistical support records for other sessions involving customers with similar personal and demographic information.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of and priority to U.S. provisionalpatent application Ser. No. 10/858,979, filed Jun. 2, 2004, theinvention of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to communication networks and, moreparticularly, to a method and apparatus for interfacing a customer witha call center.

2. Description of the Related Art

Call centers are used in many instances to sell products or to providesupport for previously sold products. In a typical call center, acustomer will make a call and be prompted to enter information to enablethat caller to be routed to an appropriate sales or support person,referred to herein as “agents.” Examples of information that may becollected by the call center software include demographic information,personal information, intent information associated with the reason theperson is calling the call center, and other general information. Thecall center software may also collect information about the call itself,such as caller ID information. This information may be used to route thecall within the call center and may also be used to populate fields inthe call center's customer relationship management (CRM) softwareprogram. For example, the call center software may request the caller toenter information about the preferred language, select an optionassociated with the purpose of the call, and optionally enter additionalinformation such as an account number and password or secret code.Frequently, this results in a caller entering lots of information viathe telephone keypad, which is relatively inconvenient for the caller.Indeed, some callers become frustrated by the process and simply hang uprather than proceeding through the process, thus resulting in a lack ofa sales opportunity for the call center or a dissatisfied customerwithout the ability to obtain effective customer support.

In an on-line context, the circumstances are the same. Specifically, anon-line support desk will frequently require the user to fill ininformation about themselves prior to passing the information to anon-line sales or support agent. While this information may be suppliedby the user's computer, this method is ineffective where the user hasdisabled the use of cookies, or where the computer is a shared computerand does not already contain the user's information.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention overcomes these and other drawbacks by providing amethod and apparatus for interfacing a customer with a call center.According to an embodiment of the invention, a Radio FrequencyIdentification (RFID) tag is used to supply information about a customerto a call center to enable information about the customer to be providedin connection with a session with the call center. The call center maybe accessed by telephone, computer, or via another type of customerpremises equipment over a voice or data network. The RFID tag may be anidentification tag provided to the customer for access to the callcenter or may be a tag associated with the customer and not specific tothe call center. Information from the RFID tag may be used to routecalls within the call center to enable the customer to be served by anagent in an appropriate skill set. The call center may route calls basedon customer identity and previous sessions with that customer,information obtained from the RFID tag and statistical support recordsfor other sessions involving customers with similar RFID information,and according to agent statistical support records. The call center mayalso route calls based on routing information contained in the RFID taginformation. Various programming techniques, such as neural net, fuzzylogic, and Bayesian logic programming techniques, may be used toimplement the routing decisions at the call center.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Aspects of the present invention are pointed out with particularity inthe appended claims. The present invention is illustrated by way ofexample in the following drawings in which like references indicatesimilar elements. The following drawings disclose various embodiments ofthe present invention for purposes of illustration only and are notintended to limit the scope of the invention. For purposes of clarity,not every component may be labeled in every figure. In the figures:

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a piece of customer premisesequipment interfacing a call center over a communication networkaccording to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of customer premises equipmentincluding an RFID reader according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of a call center network elementaccording to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of an agent terminal configured tobe interfaced to the call center network element of FIG. 3 according toan embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating a process of interfacing a pieceof customer premises equipment with a call center according to anembodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description sets forth numerous specific detailsto provide a thorough understanding of the invention. However, thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practicedwithout these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods,procedures, components, protocols, algorithms, and circuits have notbeen described in detail so as not to obscure the invention.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a network configured to interface acustomer with a call center according to an embodiment of the invention.As illustrated in FIG. 1, a customer associated with customer premisesequipment 10 may want to access a call center 12 to interact with thecall center. Commonly, call centers are used to sell products orservices to customers, provide support for products and servicespreviously sold to customers, and for many other purposes. The inventionis not limited to the particular type of call center to be accessed bythe user or to the type of transaction to occur between the customer andthe call center. As used herein, the term “customer” will be used torefer to a person, company, computer, or other entity that would like tointeract with a call center. Thus, a “customer” is not limited tonatural persons and is not limited to a person seeking to make apurchase or to a person that has previously made a purchase from thecall center.

The customer premise equipment 10 may be a telephone, cellulartelephone, a personal computer, a hand-held computing device such as apersonal digital assistant, or another piece of equipment configured toenable a communication session to take place between the customer and acall center. As shown in FIG. 1, the customer premises equipment 10includes a RFID reader 14 configured to read information from an RFIDtag 16 associated with the customer. The RFID reader 14 may be internalto the customer premises equipment 10, attached to the customer premisesequipment, or otherwise interfaced to the customer premises equipment.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are electronic tagscontaining personal or general information and are starting to be usedas a means of identification. For example, an RFID tag may be configuredto hold the customer's personal information such as name, address, andphone number; account or financial information such as their accountnumber with the company associated with the call center, other accountswith other companies, and credit card information; demographicinformation such as height, weight, and age; and other types ofinformation. For example, a RFID tag may contain phone numberinformation associated with the call center, or information associatedwith a personal agent at the call center. RFID tags are currently beingused in connection with business cards, name tags at trade shows, and inother contexts to enable the holder of an RFID tag to be identified toothers in the venue. The invention is not limited to a particular typeof RFID tag as the invention may work with numerous types of RFID tagsconfigured to store information in a variety of different ways.

RFID tags may be configured as read-only tags containing a staticallyprogrammed memory chip. Read-only chips may have information stored onthem during the manufacturing process and the information on the chipmay never be changed. Read-only chips are typically less expensive tomanufacture since the memory technology is less expensive thanprogrammable memory, and may be useful employed for example where thecall center provides customers with an RFID tag. For example, where theRFID tag is incorporated into a bill or collection notice, the RFID tagmay be pre-programmed during the manufacturing process and contain codesto enable the call to be routed to an appropriate area of the callcenter.

Read-write RFID tags contain reprogrammable memory that allowsadditional information to be added to the tag or existing information tobe erased or replaced with new information. Read-write tags may include,for example, electrically erasable programmable read-only memory(EEPROM) or another type of memory. By providing the ability to modifythe information stored on the RFID tag, the user may add personalinformation and other types of information to the RFID tag.Additionally, the call center may add information such as data or asmall amount of executable code to the RFID tag when the user accessesthe call center.

When the customer wishes to access the call center, the customeraccesses the customer premises equipment 10 and instructs the customerpremises equipment to interface the call center 12. This may be done ina conventional manner by dialing a telephone number or causing thecustomer premises equipment to access a web site or other portalassociated with the call center. Optionally, access to the call centermay be performed automatically when the customer provides RFIDinformation via the RFID reader, as discussed in greater detail below.

According to an embodiment of the invention, in connection withaccessing the call center, the customer causes RFID information to betransmitted from its RFID tag 16 to the RFID reader 14, for example byplacing the RFID tag within a particular distance of the RFID reader 14.This transfer of information may cause the call center access to occur,or optionally may be provided during the process of establishing asession or once access has occurred. Transmission of RFID informationfrom the RFID tag to the RFID reader provides information associatedwith the customer to the customer premises equipment which may then bepassed on to the call center 12 in native form or in a translated form,for example where the customer premises equipment contains software toparse the RFID data to extract information for use by the call center.

Transmission of RFID information to the customer premises equipmentallows personal information, account information, demographicinformation, and other information associated with the customer to beprovided in connection with a particular call to the call center. Thisallows information associated with the customer to be provided evenwhere the customer is using customer premises equipment that does notcontain its relevant information or contains another customer's relevantinformation. For example, if a customer borrows a telephone to access acall center, providing the relevant information from an RFID tag ratherthan from the telephone allows the information to be provided to thecall center to be specific to the customer.

Once a session has been established with the call center, RFIDinformation is passed from the customer premises equipment to the callcenter. Depending on the nature of the customer premises equipment andthe manner in which the session has been established, this may involvethe transmission of RFID information across one or more networks, suchas wireless telephone network 18, wireless data network 20, the publicswitched telephone network 22, and the Internet 24. The invention is notlimited by the particular manner in which a session is set up betweenthe customer premises equipment and the call center, as many differentways of connecting parties have been developed and the invention is notspecific to any one such way.

A call center 12 conventionally has a plurality of agents 26 configuredto answer calls from customers or to engage on-line customers. Dependingon the size and nature of the call center, different agents may havedifferent specialties and may be grouped into different skill sets. Forexample, a telecommunications provider may provide telephone service,internet service, and cable television service. The call center for thetelecommunications provider may divide its call center into three skillsets, one for each of these distinct types of services, and assignagents with particular training and experience to each of the skill setsor to combinations of skill sets. The invention is not limited to thisparticular example.

To optimize the efficiency of the call center, and to provide thecustomers with optimal customer service, a call center may attempt toroute incoming sessions to an agent with the appropriate skill set.According to an embodiment of the invention, the RFID information, orinformation associated with the RFID information, is provided to thecall center in connection with the session to enable the session to berouted within the call center. By providing RFID information to the callcenter, the incoming session may be routed more precisely withoutrequiring the customer to input additional information manually.Optionally, the RFID information may be passed to the agent as well orto a computer system associated with the call center to enableinformation associated with the subscriber to be provided to the agent.One way in which the information may be provided to the agent is via acustomer relationship management (CRM) software program available to theagent at the agent's station, although the invention is not limited inthis manner.

Routing within the call center may be performed in a number of differentways. For example, assume that the RFID tag associated with the customerwas provided to the customer for use in interactions with the callcenter. This may occur in many different ways. For example, an RFID tagmay be provided with a product purchased by the customer, in a bill sentto the customer, in a collection notice, proxy notice, or othercommunication sent to the customer, or in an advertisement distributedto the customer. Numerous other circumstances exist as well and theinvention is not limited to this illustrative group of describedcircumstances.

Where the RFID tag is provided by a company associated with the callcenter, the data in the RFID may be constructed to be usable by the callcenter directly. For example, assume that a call center sent outadvertisements with RFID tags programmed one way, and also sent outcollection notices having differently programmed RFID tags. When a callfrom a customer is received by the call center, and the RFID informationassociated with the call is provided, the call center may distinguishbetween the two tags to route calls associated with the advertisementRFID tag to the sales skill set and calls associated with the collectionnotice skill set to the collections skill set.

An RFID tag created to interface the call center may contain genericinformation, as described above, as well as information specific to thecustomer, such as the customer's account number, balance due, due date,payment history, and subscription usage information. The RFID tag mayalso include a customer support telephone number or Internet address toenable the RFID tag to be used to initiate a session with the callcenter. In this instance, since the company associated with the callcenter produced the RFID tag, information fields associated with theRFID tag may be received in an expected manner and used to route thecall within the call center. Optionally, skill set information and/oragent information may also be included in the RFID tag to allow the RFIDtag information to be used directly by the call center to route theincoming session to the proper skill set group and/or agent within thatskill set group.

If the RFID tag has not been provided by the call center or a companyaffiliated with the call center, the call center will need to interpretthe RFID data to use that data to route the incoming session within thecall center. If the RFID data format is standardized, use of theknowledge of the RFID standard may enable the call center to interpretthe data. If not, the RFID data may be interpreted by parsing the datato look for known fields, to allow the RFID information to be used toroute the session within the call center.

Different aspects of the RFID data may be used to route sessionsdifferently depending on the nature of the call center and the manner inwhich skill sets have been defined for the call center. For example, acall center associated with a music store may have skill sets split bymusical taste, whereas a call center associated with a clothing storemay have skill sets split according to type of clothing. RFID data maybe used to attempt to route sessions from customers accordingly byapplying logic to predictively determine, based on known information,what skill set is more likely to be effective in helping the customerassociated with the session. For example, in a call center associatedwith a music business, younger customers may be routed to a modern musicskill set agent, while older customers may be routed to a classicalmusic skill set agent. Thus, the routing logic within the call centermay contain generalizations about purchasing habits of likely customersto enable sessions to be routed to increase statistically the likelihoodthat a particular customer will be sent to an agent in an appropriateskill set.

The RFID reader may receive information from multiple RFID tags at thesame time. For example, a given RFID reader may receive RFID informationfrom the user's RFID and may also sense other environmental RFID tagsassociated with other users or other products in the room with the user.

Once a customer has been routed to an agent, the agent may cause RFIDinformation to be returned to the customer, to enable additional RFIDinformation to be stored on the RFID tag where the RFID tag is aread-write RFID tag. For example, the agent information and skill setinformation may be transmitted to the customer to enable subsequentinteractions between the customer and call center to be handled by thesame agent. Alternatively, the agent may cause a customer specific RFIDtag to be generated to be provided to the customer for subsequentsessions.

Additionally, executable code may be downloaded to the RFID tag, forexample an applet may be downloaded to the RFID tag, and this applet,when downloaded to the customer premises equipment or call center, maycause the consumer premises equipment or call center, to behave in aparticular way when a call is made or when the tag is placed within atransmittal range of an RFID reader or at a scheduled time. Examples ofdownloadable code may include a call-back code that would allow the RFIDtag to interact with an RFID interpreter on the telephone to provide thecall center's number for use by the telephone, code that may be used toconvey to the call center the number of minutes or call sessions thathave been placed by the user using the RFID tag, or any number ofadditional actions. The invention is not limited to any particular typeof information or executable code programmed into the RFID tag by thecall center.

Executable code and data may be downloaded to the RFID tag automaticallyby the call center or through action of the agent. For example, the callcenter may download executable code automatically to be stored on theRFID tag to allow the applet to be uploaded to the customer premisesequipment for the present interaction or for a subsequent interactionwith the call center. Alternatively, the agent may cause the executablecode to be downloaded during the session. Thus, for example, the agentmay download code to the RFID for abusive customers to prevent thecustomers from having subsequent access to the call center or to causethose customers to be routed to an abusive customer skill set within thecall center. Similarly, where a customer makes a purchase that exceeds aparticular amount, the agent may reward the customer with a piece ofsoftware that may be used to obtain a future benefit, such as a discountor to enter the customer in a random drawing for a prize. Many otheruses may be envisioned and the invention is not limited to these severaldescribed uses.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of customer premises equipment 10according to an embodiment of the invention. As shown in FIG. 2, thecustomer premises equipment 10 includes a processor 30 including controllogic 32 configured to enable it to process instructions to executecomputer program code stored in memory on the customer premisesequipment. The customer premises equipment may be optimized to perform aparticular class of actions, like a telephone, or may be a generalpurpose computer configured to communicate over a public or private datanetwork. The customer premises equipment may include features, such as adisplay 34 to present information to the customer and an user input 36such as a keyboard, mouse, track ball, touch pad, keypad, stylus, orother user entry device.

The customer premises equipment 10 may include one or more portsconfigured to enable the customer premises equipment to communicate viaone or more of the networks 18-24. For example, the customer premisesequipment may include one or more wireless ports 38 to enable thecustomer premises equipment to communicate over the wireless telephonenetwork or wireless data network, may include a telephone jack 40 toenable it to communicate over the public switched telephone network 22,and may include a data port such as an Ethernet port to enable it toengage in high speed sessions over the Internet 24. The invention is notlimited to customer premises equipment having any particular types ofports as numerous types of ports may be used.

The customer premises equipment may also have one or more pieces ofsoftware loaded onto it to enable it to interact with the call center.For example, the customer premises equipment may include call centersoftware 44 to enable it to interact with the call center to provideinformation from the RFID tag. For example, the call center may provideconsumers with customer premises equipment software routines to optimizeinteractions between the call center and the customer premisesequipment. For example, the call center may provide a software routineto collect and parse RFID information from the customer premisesequipment 10 and transmit information over the network in a form morereadily usable by the call center 12. One way in which this may beimplemented is by transmitting an applet or cookie to the customerpremises equipment, although the invention is not limited in thisregard.

The executable code may also be stored on the RFID tag, as discussed ingreater detail above. When executable code is stored on the RFID tag,the information, including the executable code, will be transmitted fromthe RFID tag to the customer premises equipment. The executable code maythen be used by an interpreter or other code previously loaded onto thecustomer premises equipment to allow the customer premises equipment tobe programmed in a particular manner to allow the RFID data orinteraction with the call center to be handled in a desired fashion.Alternatively, the RFID data including the executable code may betransferred to the call center to cause the call center to operate in aparticular way. Thus, for example, the call center may be configured toplay a particular music selection to the user while waiting in a queuebased on the executable code transferred from the RFID tag.

The RFID information contained on the RFID tag may contain informationconfigured to allow access to the call center, such as authorizationcodes or access counter information to allow the holder of the RFID tagto access the call center particular number of times or to allow theRFID tag holder to obtain premium access to the call center for aparticular number of sessions or particular amount of time. Premiumaccess to the call center may thus be controlled and sold through theissuance of RFID tags, which would allow the customer to obtain accessto premium support without requiring the customer to remember passwords,access codes, and other information that may not be readily available oreasy to remember.

Additionally, where the call center to be accessed does not include theability to receive RFID information, the customer premises equipment mayinclude Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) generator or Phase Shift Key(PSK) generator to generate DTMF/PSK information in response to promptsfrom the call center. In this embodiment, the customer premisesequipment may receive RFID information, establish a call to the callcenter, receive prompts from the call center in the form of voiceprompts, convert the voice prompts into machine codes, decode themachine codes to determine what piece of information is being requestedby the call center, and generate codes to respond to the call center.For example, assume that a session is established and the RFIDinformation provided by the customer indicates that the customer speaksEnglish as a primary language. If the call center responds by stating“please press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish . . . ” the customer premisesequipment, using the RFID information, may automatically generate a DTMF“1” in response to the prompt. The invention is not limited to thisembodiment as other embodiments may preferentially omit a DTMF emulationsoftware module.

The customer premises equipment may include a native RFID reader 48 oran RFID reader interface 50 to an external RFID reader 52. The RFIDreaders 48, 52 may be configured to read information from RFID tags 16in a known manner. The invention is not limited to the type of RFIDreader used in connection with customer premises equipment 10 or to howthe RFID reader is incorporated into or interfaced to the customerpremises equipment 10.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a call center network element accordingto an embodiment of the invention. As shown in FIG. 3, a network elementat a call center generally includes a processor 60 containing controllogic 62 configured to implement software routines to enable the networkelement to function as a call center 12. The call center also includesone or more ports 64 to enable the call center to be accessed over oneor more of the networks 18-24 illustrated in FIG. 1.

The call center may include call center software 66 to enable the callcenter to interface with customers. The call center may also includerouting software 68 configured to enable the call center to routesessions within the call center so that customers are directed to anappropriate agent. The call center may also include queues 70 to allowthe sessions to be held pending the availability of an appropriateagent, and other conventional call center features. Optionally, customerrelationship management (CRM) software 71 may be provided to storeinformation about customers and allow the information to be presented toagents in connection with the call session.

Sessions are interfaced to agents 26 over agent ports 72. As discussedabove, the agents may be grouped by skill set, demographic, or othergroupings. The routing software 68 may use the provisioned division toroute incoming sessions to the agents so that an agent havingappropriate training or experience may be matched with an incomingsession. As discussed herein, the routing logic may utilize informationreceived or deduced from the RFID information to route the incomingsession to an appropriate agent or group of agents in a particular skillset.

Routing within the call center may be implemented using soft computingconfigured to learn over time how to route incoming sessions. Examplesof soft computing include neural networks, fuzzy logic, and Bayesianlogic, although the invention is not limited to an implementation usingone of these particular types of programming techniques. The statisticaldecision making may be performed on data in an unknown data set receivedfrom the RFID tag, based on environmental information associated withother RFID tags within range of the RFID tag reader, or may be based onknown information from an RFID tag provided by the call center. Theinvention is not limited to the particular manner in which the softwareis programmed or trained to interpret RFID tag information.

The call center may have other features as well. For example, the callcenter may include a statistics collection module 74 configured tointerface with an agent database 76 and customer database 78 to generatestatistics about how particular agents or skill sets interface withparticular types of customers. The statistics may be correlated withRFID information received in connection with the incoming sessions, andused by the soft computing technique to modify the routing software sothat the manner in which sessions are routed may be modified over timeaccording to statistical trends. For example, assume the call center isassociated with a music store, and initially the call center routingsoftware includes a rule configured to route callers over 50 years ofage to a particular skill set and callers under 50 years of age toanother skill set. Over time, it may emerge that the age division shouldbe moved down or up depending on the sales records, overall customersatisfaction, number of calls transferred between skill sets, and othertypes of statistics. By correlating RFID information and how thesessions are handled, the routing software may be adjusted to routesessions within the call center more effectively.

The customer database allows statistics and records to be maintained forparticular customers so that repeat customers may be handled by the callcenter more effectively. Thus, a particular customer that has previouslyinterfaced the call center and successfully interfaced to a particularskill set may be routed to that same skill set for the new session.Similarly, the customer may be routed to the same agent, if that agentis available, if the customer was successfully routed to a particularagent in a previous session. Conversely, where the customer has had abad experience with a particular agent, the customer may be routed suchthat the customer will not be served by that agent during subsequentcalls. Thus, customers who are abusive may be flagged by the call centerand routed to an abusive caller call set or transferred to an answeringservice without being forwarded to an agent.

The customer database may contain more information than simply a recordof previous sessions, but may also be configured to contain inferredcustomer preferences based on previous sessions. Thus, for example, if aparticular customer has terminated a session after being on hold forfive minutes, the customer database may be amended to reflect that thiscustomer is not likely to hold longer than five minutes and the routingsoftware may use this information to seek an agent queue that is shorterthan five minutes. Other customer preferences may be inferred as well.The customer database thus allows customer specific statistics to beused to route sessions from a particular customer.

The agent database may contain agent information such as statisticalsales records or successful session information associated with thatagent, which may be correlated with incoming session RFID information.Enabling the call center to build a database of information for theagents based on incoming RFID information allows the routing software todetermine, based on the RFID information for a new session, which agentsare likely to do well on the session and which agents are likely to notperform as well during the session. The session may be routedaccordingly to preferentially select one of the agents that hasperformed well during previous sessions with customers that transmittedsimilar RFID information.

Optionally, the call center may include an RFID generation module 79 toenable the call center to be configured to generate RFID taginformation. The RFID tag information may be used by an RFID tagprogramming apparatus to create RFID tags specific to the call center sothat the RFID information supplied by customers in subsequent sessionsmay be used directly to route the call within the call center. Where theuser has access to an RFID writer, the agent may pass theagent-generated RFID information to the customer during the session toallow the new information to be stored on the customer's RFID tag. Theinvention is not limited to a call center including this module,however, as this information may be obtained from the call center inanother manner, such as via a management interface, and used to createRFID tags for use by the customers.

FIG. 4 shows one example of an agent terminal that may be used tointerface an agent to the call center. As shown in FIG. 4, the agentterminal includes a processor 80 containing control logic 82 configuredto enable the agent terminal to run software to allow the agent tointeract with customers via the agent terminal. The agent terminal mayinclude a display 84 and an agent input 86 in a manner similar to thecustomer premises equipment discussed above. The agent terminal may alsoinclude a call center interface 88 to allow the agent terminal to beconnected to the call center 12 discussed above in connection with FIG.3.

The agent terminal also includes call center software 90 andsales/support software 92 such as customer relationship management (CRM)software to enable the agent terminal to provide the agent withinformation to enable the agent to provide technical support, engage insales activities, or otherwise interact with customers on sessions.Agent terminals are well known in the art and the invention is notlimited to a particular type of agent terminal or to particular softwaremodules associated with the agent terminal.

FIG. 5 illustrates a process of interfacing a customer with a callcenter according to an embodiment of the invention. As shown in FIG. 5,when a customer interfaces a call center such as by initiating a session(100), RFID information associated with the customer is transmitted tothe call center, either alone or in connection with additionalinformation supplied by the customer (102).

The call center, upon receipt of the RFID information, analyzes the RFIDinformation to determine if it is specific to the call center (104).This may be done, for example, by associating a particular data formatwith RFID information specific to the call center, by including aparticular code for RFID tags containing information specific to thecall center, or in another manner.

If the RFID information is specific to the call center, the format ofthe data will be known to the call center and the data may be used toroute the call within the call center. Routing, in this instance, maytake place directly (106) or by correlating RFID information with callcenter parameters (107) that may then be used to route the call (106).For example, the RFID data may contain a routing field or may containfields that may be read by the call center to key into the particularskill sets to readily route the call within the call center.Alternatively, the RFID data may contain fields of information that maybe used by the soft computing architecture to statistically route thecall within the call center.

If the RFID information is not specific to the call center, the callcenter will need to interpret the RFID information to parse useableinformation from the RFID information. The parsed information will becorrelated with call center parameters (108) to route the call withinthe call center based on the identifiable information (110). This may bedone, as discussed above, using a soft computing technique toprobabilistically or statistically route the call within the callcenter. Where the information associated with the RFID information isnot able to be parsed, or not able to be correlated with informationthat is used by the call center to route calls, the customer may beprompted to enter data manually to enable the session to be routed or,alternatively, the session may be routed to a default skill set.Additionally, other information available to the call center from thetelephone network, such as caller ID information, or domain name system(DNS) information such as Internet Protocol (IP) address, UniformResource Locator (URL) information, and other information available withthe session, may be used to route the call within the call center aswell.

Although the invention was described herein in connection withinterfacing a customer with a call center, the invention may also allowidentification of customers on a communication network as a supplementto caller ID or instead of caller ID. Thus, for example, thetransmission of RFID information in connection with a telephone call mayenable enhanced caller identification to be performed by networkelements on the network configured to handle the call or by the customerpremises equipment configured to complete the call. The use of RFIDinformation may provide information about the person making thetelephone call rather than the person to whom the telephone isregistered, to thereby provide more accurate caller identificationservices on the network.

It should be understood that all functional statements made hereindescribing the functions to be performed by the methods of the inventionmay be performed by software programs implemented utilizing subroutinesand other programming techniques known to those of ordinary skill in theart.

The software may be implemented as a set of program instructionsconfigured to operate in control logic on a network element that arestored in a computer readable memory within the network element andexecuted on a microprocessor. However, it will be apparent to a skilledartisan that all logic described herein also can be embodied usingdiscrete components, integrated circuitry such as an ApplicationSpecific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), programmable logic used inconjunction with a programmable logic device such as a FieldProgrammable Gate Array (FPGA) or microprocessor, or any other deviceincluding any combination thereof. Programmable logic can be fixedtemporarily or permanently in a tangible medium such as a read-onlymemory chip, a computer memory, a disk, or other storage medium.Programmable logic can also be fixed in a computer data signal embodiedin a carrier wave, allowing the programmable logic to be transmittedover an interface such as a computer bus or communication network. Allsuch embodiments are intended to fall within the scope of the presentinvention.

It should be understood that various changes and modifications of theembodiments shown in the drawings and described in the specification maybe made within the spirit and scope of the present invention.Accordingly, it is intended that all matter contained in the abovedescription and shown in the accompanying drawings be interpreted in anillustrative and not in a limiting sense. The invention is limited onlyas defined in the following claims and the equivalents thereto.

1. A system comprising: an RFID apparatus comprising: an RFID tagdevice; and a communications interface configured to communicate with awide area network (WAN), wherein the RFID apparatus is configured toread RFID information from an RFID tag placed within a reading proximityof the RFID tag device, and to communicate the RFID information to acall center network element via the WAN; and the call center networkelement configured to be communicatively coupled to a plurality of agentstations, the call center network element comprising: a networkinterface configured to communicate with the WAN; a processor coupled tothe network interface; and control logic which configures the processorto: receive the RFID information via the WAN; and based on the RFIDinformation, effect a presentation of information provided to one of theplurality of agent stations.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein thecontrol logic further configures the processor to: route a communicationsession to the one of the plurality of agent stations based on the RFIDinformation.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the RFID tag devicecomprises an RFID tag reader and writer, and wherein the control logicis further configured to send data to the RFID tag device via the WANfor recording on the RFID tag.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein thedata comprises a routing data for altering the routing of a subsequentcommunication session established with the call center network element.5. The system of claim 1, wherein the control logic further configuresthe processor to: select a particular song from a plurality of songsbased on the RFID information; and stream the particular song to theRFID apparatus for rendering to a user.
 6. The system of claim 1,wherein the control logic further configures the processor to: select aparticular language from a plurality of languages based on the RFIDinformation; and stream the particular language to the RFID apparatusfor rendering to a user.
 7. A call center network element configured tobe communicatively coupled to a plurality of agent stations, the callcenter network element comprising: a network interface configured tocommunicate with a wide area network (WAN); a processor coupled to thenetwork interface; and control logic which configures the processor to:receive RFID information from an RFID tag device via the WAN, the RFIDtag device generating the RFID information based on an RFID tag inreading proximity of the RFID tag device; and based on the RFIDinformation, effect the presentation of information provided to one ofthe plurality of agent stations.
 8. The call center network element ofclaim 7, wherein the control logic further configures the processor to:route a communication session to the one of the plurality of agentstations based on the RFID information.
 9. The call center networkelement of claim 7, wherein the RFID tag device comprises an RFID tagreader and writer, and wherein the control logic is further configuredto send data to the RFID tag device via the WAN for recording on theRFID tag.
 10. A method for effecting the presentation of informationprovided to an agent in a call center, the method comprising: receiving,at a call center network element configured to be communicativelycoupled to a plurality of agent stations, RFID information from an RFIDtag device via a wide area network (WAN), the RFID tag device generatingthe RFID information based on an RFID tag in reading proximity of theRFID tag device; and based on the RFID information, effect thepresentation of information provided to one of the plurality of agentstations.
 11. The method of claim 10, further comprising routing acommunication session to the one of the plurality of agent stationsbased on the RFID information.
 12. The method of claim 10, wherein theRFID tag device comprises an RFID tag reader and writer, and furthercomprising sending data to the RFID tag device via the WAN for recordingon the RFID tag.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the data comprisesrouting data for altering a routing of a subsequent communicationsession established with the call center network element.